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The Fraternal Council of Negro Churches, 1934–1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Mary R. Sawyer
Mary R. Sawyer
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of religious studies in Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
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Extract

In the years since the civil rights and black power movements cooperative black religious organizations have become a familiar feature of the religious landscape in America. Among these interdenominational bodies, in addition to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, may be noted the now defunct National Conference of Black Churchmen, the Black Theology Project, Partners in Ecumenism, and the Congress of National Black Churches. Little noted, however, is a precursor of these organizations which functioned for two decades prior to the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 51 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1990

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References

1. For an overview of these organizations, see Sawyer, Mary R., “Black Ecumenical Movements: Proponents of Social Change,” Review of Religious Research 30 (1988): 151–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. wright, Richard R. Jr, “Where is the Federal Council of Negro Methodists,” Christian Recorder (1917),Google Scholar cited in Sernett, Milton C., “If not Moses, then Joshua,” unpublished paper, 09 1988, p. 8.Google Scholar

3. Work, Monroe N., ed., Negro Year Book (Tuskegee, Ala., 1931–1932), p. 254.Google Scholar

4. For a discussion of Bishop Ransom's experiences with the FCC and his advocacy of merger, see Morris, Calvin S., “Reverdy C. Ransom” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1982), pp. 80–81Google ScholarIn his autobiography Ransom writes: “Some of us saw clearly that [the Federal Council of Churches] could not bring its full influence to bear upon many questions that were vital to Negroes and other minority groups. We therefore organized the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches to promote the interests and objectives we had in mind”; Ransom, Reverdy C., The Pilgrimage of Harriet Ransom's Son (Nashville, n.d.), p. 296.Google Scholar Ransom's despair over the seemingly unlikely success of merger efforts notwithstanding, the two ideas of merger and cooperation continued to receive Concurrent attention from the black church community. For a discussion of the history of black merger efforts, see Sawyer, Mary R., “Efforts at Black Church Merger,” The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center 13 (1986): 305–315.Google Scholar

5. Ransom, Reverdy C., ed., “The Fraternal Council of Negro Churches in America,” Year Book of Negro Churches, 1935–36 (Wilberforce, Ohio, 1936), p. 24.Google Scholar

6. “Forward,” 1972 Heritage Brochure: Facts About the National Fraternal Council of Churches, U.S.A., Inc., assembled and issued by the Washington Bureau, National Fraternal Council of Churches, July 1972.

7. Ransom, , Year Book of Negro Churches, pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

8. See, for example, Sid, Thompson, “Some Highlights in the Fraternal Council,” The Negro Journal of Religion 4 (1938): 13.Google Scholar

9. Membership in the Council fluctuated some over the years, but at one time or another it included, in addition to the four Methodist denominations and two National Baptist conventions, the following: The African Orthodox Church; The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith; Church of God in Christ; The Pentecostal Church; Freewill Baptists; Primitive Baptists; Church of God, Holiness; Church of God and Saints of Christ (Black Jews); The Bible Way Church of Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Community Church of Chicago; and the Central Jurisdiction of the Methodist Church. Also represented were “Negro Churches of Interracial Denominations”: Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, Disciples of Christ (Christian), and the Conference of Community Churches. The constituency of the Council was always considered to be the total membership of the participating denominations—some eight to nine million blacks as of 1947.

10. Burkett, Randall K., Garveyism as a Religious Movement (Metuchen, N.J., 1978), p. 113.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., pp. 146–148.

12. See Maloney's “Plea For Unity of the Negro Church,” reprinted in Burkett, Randall K., Black Redemption: Churchmen Speak for the Garvey Movement (Philadelphia, 1978), pp. 94–97.Google Scholar

13. Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma, vol. 2 (New York, 1944), p. 817.Google Scholar

14. 1972 Heritage Brochure, p. 10.

15. Roberts, Samuel Kelton, “Crucible for a Vision: The Work of George Edmund Haynes and the Commission on Race Relations, 1922–1947” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974), p. 237,Google Scholar cited in Crayton, Spurgeon E., “The History and Theology of the National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches” (Master's thesis, Union Theological Seminary, 1979), pp. 11–121,Google Scholar and Wills, David W., “An Enduring Distance: Black Americans and the Protestant Establishment,” in Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment, ed. Hutchison, William R. (New York), forthcoming.Google Scholar

16. See Wills, “An Enduring Distance.”

17. Morris, , “Reverdy C. Ransom,” pp. 73–75;Google ScholarCrayton, , “History and Theology,” p. 4.Google Scholar

18. 1972 heritage Brochure, p. 9.

19. “A Message to the Churches and to the Public From the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches,” reprinted in Ransom, , Pilgrimage, pp. 297–300.Google Scholar In all probability the “Message” was written by Bishop Ransom.

20. 1972 heritage Brochure, pp. 8–10

21. Work, Monroe N., ed., Negro Year Book (Tuskegee, Ala., 1937–1938), p. 215.Google Scholar

22. An editorial on the Fraternal Council in the April 1940 issue of The Negro Journal of Religion (6:4) refers to “makfing] surveys, keep[ing] in touch with the denominations of the country, and push[ing] forward a sane program of publicity.”

23. Andrew Fowler, interiew with the author, Washington, D.C., 2 August 1985.

24. Significantly, members of the executive committee were not required to be ministers, which enabled the appointment of women. In fact, two members of the original thirty-nine-member executive committee were women. The executive committee appointed the executive secretary, who served as the administrative head of the Council and directed the work of the various committees and commissions.

25. Washington Afro-American (22 Feb. 1958), n.p.

26. Ibid.

27. Washington Afro-American (23 Oct. 1954), n.p.

28. Burkett, Randall K., “The Black Church in the Years of Crisis: J. C. Austin and Pilgrim Baptist Church, 1926–1950” (Paper delivered to the W.E.B. DuBois Institute's “Working Group on Afro-American Religion and Politics,” Harvard University, 9 03 1989), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

29. Fowler, interview.

30. News release of the Associated Negro Press, (?) August 1944 and 16 October 1944, in Claude A. Barnett Papers, Box 387–7, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois. Bishop Wright's “offense” was that he had accepted a position as vice-chairman of the National Citizens Political Action committee without resigning his position with the Council, thus appearing to have committed the support of the nonpartisan Fraternal Council to a partisan political organization.

31. Press release and transcript of phone call, 27 February 1947, to the Associated Negro Press, Claude Barnett Papers.

32. Letter from Bishop Greene to Barnett, C. A., Associated Negro Press, 24 05 1957,Google Scholar Claude Barnett Papers.

33. 1972 Heritage Brochure, p. 35.

34. Cited in Crayton, , “History and Theology,” p. 42.Google Scholar

35. 1972 heritage Brochure, p. 21.

36. Crayton, , “History and Theology,” p. 28.Google Scholar

37. Stalnaker, Calvin K., “The ABC's of the National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches, U.S.A.,” 1947;Google Scholar1972 Heritage Brochure, pp. 19–20, 43; Brochure of Examples of Work Done by the Fraternal Council of Churches, issued by the Washington Bureau, September 1964, passim.

38. J. T.McMillan, phone interview with the author, 18 February 1985.

39. 1972 heritage Brochure, passim.

40. Morris, , “Reverdy C. Ransom,” p. 86.Google Scholar

41. Crayton, , “History and Theology,” p. 52.Google Scholar This claim is based on an interview Crayton conducted with Reverend George W. Lucas, who was executive secretary of the Fraternal Council at the time the invitation was extended to King.

42. Ibid.; Irma Lucas, inteview with the author at the Conference of Partners in Ecumenism, Washington, D.C., 25 September 1985.

43. Joan, Campbell, interview with the author at the Conference of Partners in Ecumenism, Washington, D.C., 24 09 1985.Google Scholar

44. John, Satterwhite, interview with the author, Washington, D.C., 01 1985.Google Scholar

45. Bishop John Adams, chair of the Congress of National Black Churches; Reverend Joan Campbell, former associate general secretary of the NCC; and Irma Lucas, widow of George Lucas, all attest to the veracity of this statement. Lucas subsequently became an important link between the Fraternal Council and successor organizations, serving as the first president of Partners in Ecumenism and as a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Congress of National Black Churches.